As we trekked further southwards, inching our way down the map, we encountered more populated areas. This created more options for routing, a blessing for some and a curse for me. Then the Helix went kaput!

It should have been one of the easiest days of this year’s Cannonball. One last mountain pass —a cinch compared to what we’d already done — then a descent into the plains of southeast Colorado. From there, it was flat and straight, east and south and east, making our way across Kansas. Those plains had something else in store for us.

It’s 9:30 am on a chilly Sunday morning and I’m riding down a red dirt road just south of the Wyoming/Colorado border. I haven’t seen another vehicle in almost an hour. A smattering of raindrops lands on my windshield, so I’m riding fast as possible on the Helix, hoping to make it through all 22 miles of dirt before the rain comes and turns it to mud. My fuel gauge is in the red; no idea where the next gas station might be. I tear down a slope and corner hard into a narrow canyon where winds seem to come from every direction, battering me and the scooter. And I think, “This is it. this is the Cannonball I signed up for.”